


Diamond

by michmak



Series: The Wizard of Odd, and other stories [19]
Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-21
Updated: 2012-09-21
Packaged: 2017-11-14 19:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michmak/pseuds/michmak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's not healthy, this obsession you have with getting stabbed or shot at where ever you go."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diamond

Prompt: 018 – Health (list 2)  
Word Count: 531  
Progress: 19/100

 

"It's not healthy," Simon muttered as he stitched Mal up.

"Huh?" Mal gritted back.

"It's not healthy, this obsession you have with getting stabbed or shot at where ever you go."

Mal raised an eyebrow at him and scowled, "You think I wanna get stabbed or shot at?"

"I don't know, do you?"

"Wo de ma, Doc. I thought your sister was the crazy one."

"Not crazy anymore, just brilliant and fractured – like a broken diamond." River said from the other side of the room. She was sitting on the counter, watching intently as Simon tied off a stitch and cut the thread.

Mal just smirked. He found himself strangely content, lying here on the med-table. Things coulda been a whole lot worse – bullet just grazed him; barely felt it. And, despite Simon's accusations, it had been a long time since someone had tried to stab him.

All in all, things seemed to be looking up lately. He was back to having coffee in the kitchen again late at night with River. Most the time they'd just sit there together, the silence between them warm, like a blanket. Sometimes, she'd tell him some weird little factoid she had spinning around in that brain 'a hers, like how on Earth-that-Was most 'a the constellations had been named after ancient Greek and Roman myths.

She told him about the twelve labors of Hercules; about Achilles and his gorram heel; Helen of Troy, who's face had launched a thousand ships. He'd heard some 'a these stories before, 'a course, but he'd never heard 'em the way she told 'em, her voice flowing over him like a benediction.

And when their talk was done and the shadows that had kept him from sleeping were less, he would stumble to his bunk and fall into a deep sleep, dreaming of nothing except the sound of her voice and the warmth of her smile.

He hadn't kissed her again, but he knew he would eventually. He was still trying to reconcile the fact that she seemed to fit so well into his darkness. Her brand 'a crazy and his brand 'a crazy weren't all that distant from each other. She understood him at some intrinsic level and the knowledge that she did sat well with him.

Simon would flip if he ever knew how much Mal considered River his now. He didn't see the girl hardly at all when he looked at her – instead, he saw a woman who managed to survive, despite the odds stacked against her. And, despite his teasing, he didn't see her as crazy anymore. She was brilliant – not a broken diamond at all, but precious and whole and shinier than anything else he'd ever seen in his whole life.

Doc was still nattering on about something, but Mal had stopped paying attention long ago. Instead, he turned his head and looked at his little albatross. He cocked an eyebrow at her when her eyes drifted to his and smirked when she cocked an eyebrow back. Her eyes were as black as the 'Verse and a whole universe lived in them.

One day – soon – he would too.


End file.
